Larson's Victory and Brian Brown's Crash Make Headlines On Thursday At The Knoxville Nationals

It should come as no surprise that the three-time, and twice defending Knoxville Nationals champion Kyle Larson would make his way to victory lane on night number two of the "Grandaddy of Them All" Thursday night. But his path to victory was a bit more challenging than in the past and if Larson is going to score his third straight title on Saturday night it will come from a fifth row starting position.

Kyle Larson sails to victory - Barry Johnson photo

The 45th car out for qualifying, Larson could only muster the fifteenth best qualifying lap on the night and when he could only get to fourth after starting fifth in the final heat race, that would put him into tonight's main event, but already him 39 points shy of a perfect score. His pre-feature total was good enough though to make the eight car invert for Thursday's twenty-five lap headliner and he immediately started to gain positions from his fifth starting spot after the drop of the green. 

Barry Johnson photo

Front row starters Spencer Bayston and Derek Hagar would swap the lead back and forth until Bayston gained control on lap three and once Larson slipped past Hagar for second he had his sights set on the leader. The anticipated pass for the lead came at the mid-race mark and although Logan Schuchart closed the gap over the final three laps, the winner was not in doubt as Larson had more than ten car lengths on him at the checkers. Schuchart's charge from sixth to second netted him enough points to start Saturday's finale from third. Bayston would hang on to finish third after leading early and that would be just enough to land him in the sixteenth and final spot determined by qualifying night points for Saturday's A-Main. Giovanni Scelzi, subbing for Tyler Courtney in the Clauson/Marshall #7BC, finished in the fourth spot, good enough to place him fourteenth on the grid for Saturday night while Carson Macedo will start on the outside of the front row, next to Wednesday's winner Ryan Timms in the headliner after he advanced from eighth to fifth tonight. 

Logan Schuchart - Barry Johnson photo

Bill Balog dropped from fourth to sixth, Brock Zearfoss finished seventh, quick qualifier as the third car out for qualifying, Brad Sweet came from row eleven after winning the B-Main to finish eighth while Derek Hagar and Tasker Phillips completed the top ten.

The other lead story of the night came during the third heat race as Brian Brown tried to make his way around J.J. Hickle for the fourth and final transfer position. On two occasions Brown had a run around the cushion only to have his line cut off by Hickle coming up off the bottom. The third time this scenario played out disaster struck for Brown who was just starting to drive around Hickle exiting turn two when they made contact sending Brown hard into the outside guardrail before going end over end at least three times with parts and fluids flying everywhere.

Thankfully Brian crawled out of his destroyed race car under his own power and then for some reason, a full heat race after this one had been completed, they decided to interview Hickle on DirtVision. His comments, while reasonable, did not go over well with some in the crowd and they would let him know it with a round of boos. After qualifying third quick, a transfer out of this heat and then just a top ten finish in the feature would have landed Brown on the first two rows for Saturday night, but now he will have to fight off the aches and pains from this crash and try to battle back in Friday's show. (Friday morning update, it looks like Brian suffered a broken right hand and a broken left wrist in the accident and will not be racing tonight)

After that third heat race restarted the crowd came to life when 69-year-old Sammy Swindell used the high line to drive around Hickle for the fourth and final transfer position.

Tonight's "surprise" local driver was young Cameron Martin who put up the second quick time as the tenth driver to hit the track. He then had to pass Terry McCarl late in the second heat race just to get to eighth and make the front of the B-Main, otherwise he would have been relegated to the C. In the B he would chase pole-sitter Brad Sweet to the checkers and then in the A-Main he gained six spots to finish sixteenth and that puts him in Saturday's championship feature that will see the first eight rows lineup like this:

Ryan Timms - Carson Macedo

Logan Schuchart - Brad Sweet

Sheldon Haudenschild - Corey Day

Rico Abreu - Emerson Axsom

Kyle Larson - Justin Peck

Garet Williamson - Austin McCarl

Bill Balog - Giovanni Scelzi

Cameron Martin - Spencer Bayston

Buddy Kofoid had a disappointing night only tallying enough points to rank 62nd on the list of one hundred and the Roth #83 team will be searching for more speed tomorrow night as he will join Brian Brown, David Gravel and Donny Schatz as some of the big name drivers who will try to punch their ticket at the back of Saturday's A-Main by finishing in the top four on Friday night.

One other potential scenario to follow on Saturday will be the weather as the forecast keeps changing from day-to-day. As of this writing the rain chances do not ramp up until after midnight, but if that gets pushed back up a bit it might force officials to go into "hurry-up mode" which might not mesh well with Kyle Larson's travel plans from Watkins Glen. Hopefully that will be a non-factor!

Friday night's show should be a good one and there are still tickets available!

Spencer Bayston - Barry Johnson photo